Midnight Zillow and the Great Dream Gap
Laptop open, clock hitting 12:07 a.m., and you’re 10 pages deep on Zillow. A French farmhouse in Napa. A slope-side modern house in Aspen. A Spanish villa you’ll “check out someday.”
And then reality hits: Your bank account doesn’t speak the same language as your browser tabs.
That moment—the gap between dreaming and affording—is exactly what Pacaso’s founder, Austin Allison, noticed when he worked at Zillow. The data told the story: Millions of people spend nearly an hour per session browsing $2 million+ properties, with zero realistic chance of buying that vacation home of their dreams.
And in that gap, Allison saw a $1.3 trillion opportunity.
The Big Idea: Break Homes Into Shares
Why should vacation homes be owned 100% by one family when that family will only use it 10% to 20% of the year? Fractional ownership changes the narrative because you can buy a small slice. Get real equity, usage rights, and let someone else worry about the gutters.
- The mechanics: Properties are purchased through an LLC. Owners buy shares, often one-eighth or one-fourth of the home.
- The lifestyle: Owners get rightsized time in the home, and enjoy a fully furnished, fully managed experience. Pacaso takes care of all the hassle (upkeep, cleaning, legal, HOAs, taxes, etc.).
- The equity play: Because you actually own part of the real estate asset, your share appreciates with the property.
It’s essentially buying stock shares using Robinhood, but for houses. Or using Airbnb for a vacation rental, but with an ownership spin. Still, like with any investment, the devil’s in the due diligence.
A Potential Use Case
Picture a dentist who runs a thriving practice, or a boutique agency owner bringing in $300K+ a year. They’re not billionaires, but they’ve built steady cash flow and have investable capital beyond their retirement accounts.
Owning a $2 million vacation property outright doesn’t make sense when their time is already stretched thin and their money is better diversified. But putting $200K into a quarter-share of a managed home in Aspen or Napa? That fits.
For them, fractional ownership checks multiple boxes:
- Lifestyle: It’s a guaranteed escape for family holidays or client entertainment.
- Equity: Their share appreciates as the home does.
- Convenience: No maintenance headaches, managing cleaners or landscapers, or HOA squabbles.
That’s the dream that Pacaso enables. For busy professionals and small business owners, fractional ownership isn’t just a lifestyle splurge—it’s an ability to access an otherwise impossible tier of wealth and luxury.
Why Now? Timing Is Everything
Fractional ownership or DIY co-ownership (like when a family owns a property together) isn’t brand new. But Pacaso’s timing is different:
- Pandemic tailwinds: Remote work uncoupled people from cities. Disposable savings hit record highs, ranging from 12% to 32%. The dream of “a second place” became more tangible.
- Tech fixes logistics: Remember the nightmare of managing co-owners with sticky notes and shared calendars? Platforms now automate scheduling, maintenance, and even resale.
- Cultural appetite: Younger investors don’t want to tie themselves down to one asset for life. They want flexibility, optionality, and experiences—without waiting until retirement.
Add those together, and suddenly fractional ownership feels less like a novelty and more like a megatrend.
Inside Pacaso’s Machine
Here’s where BiggerPockets is different from lifestyle blogs. It’s not about “Wouldn’t Aspen be fun?” It’s about risk, structure, and ROI.
Pacaso isn’t only offering the chance for people to buy homes—they are currently letting the public buy stock directly in Pacaso until Sept. 18.
This isn’t some fly-by-night proptech. Pacaso was founded by a guy who helped grow Zillow into a multibillion-dollar behemoth. Austin Allison didn’t stumble into this. He watched the browsing data for years, learned from his first company (which he sold for $120 million), and surrounded himself with industry experts.
That credibility attracted heavy hitters. VCs behind Uber, Venmo, and eBay have backed Pacaso.
And they’re not just playing in Aspen and Napa. Pacaso recently launched in Paris and is expanding to London, Cabo, and the Caribbean—places where Americans already buy second homes, but struggle with logistics and local rules.
And now, Pacaso isn’t just selling shares in houses. They’re letting everyday investors buy shares of the company itself. Their SEC-qualified offering is open until Sept. 18.
Here’s the real kicker: Pacaso has reserved the Nasdaq ticker PCSO. Translation: They want to take the whole platform public. That’s a big reason why they are currently doing this public growth round. They’re building a public investor base, and also marketing for their company.
This means investors have two ways to play:
- Buy the homes: Get lifestyle plus exposure to luxury markets.
- Buy the company: Bet on the infrastructure powering fractional everything.
Pacaso’s Regulation A offering is open until Sept. 18. Learn more and review the offering circular here.
The Reality Check
Let’s pump the brakes for a moment. After digging into the fractional ownership model, three major vulnerabilities jump out.
Market vulnerability
Luxury real estate is historically the first to get hit in downturns. This could leave fractional shares stranded without buyers.
However, there’s an interesting counterargument: Economic uncertainty could actually drive more affluent buyers toward fractional ownership as a lower-commitment alternative to purchasing an entire vacation home.
Community resistance
Some towns, like St. Helena, California, are pushing back against rotating owners because they fear the “hotel-ification” of their neighborhoods. The noise, parking issues, and revolving door of strangers can be seen as a plague in communities overrun with Airbnb properties. We’ve all seen how short-term rentals can transform quiet residential streets into de facto hotel zones, complete with party houses and absent accountability.
However, Pacaso’s model is fundamentally different: These are long-term co-owners who have skin in the game, maintaining consistent property standards and building relationships with neighbors. It’s more like a shared family cottage than a rental property.
So where does this leave us? We have a model with genuine innovation solving real problems, but also facing significant headwinds. The question isn’t whether fractional ownership will exist—because it will—but whether it becomes a mainstream alternative to traditional ownership or remains a luxury curiosity.
Final Thoughts
Fractional vacation homeownership sits in that gray zone between genuine opportunity and an unproven new category.
- Opportunity: A $1.3 trillion market, growing adoption, tech finally catching up.
- Risks: Luxury volatility, legal hurdles, liquidity.
If you believe in the model, investing in Pacaso might be for you. If you’re skeptical, the sidelines might be the safer play for you.
Either way, it’s worth paying attention. Because if Pacaso wins, it won’t just change who gets to own a vacation home—it could change how ownership itself works.
Let me know in the comments: Would you buy a quarter-share of an Aspen vacation home, or would you buy stock in Pacaso itself?
This is a paid advertisement for Pacaso’s Regulation A offering. Please read the offering circular at invest.pacaso.com. Reserving a ticker symbol is not a guarantee that the company will go public. Listing on the NASDAQ is subject to approvals.
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